I’m working on reading submissions and getting things scheduled. Expect to see new pastas on the main page starting on February 8th, and please do visit Crappypasta if you’re really starving for new pastas! I’ve been updating it for about a week now, and I’m sure the authors would appreciate some constructive criticism. Remember, the more we can improve the community’s overall skill level, the easier it will be for me to find new main-site pastas! Most of the holdup right now comes from the simple fact that I have to get through roughly 50+ unpostable submissions to find one acceptable submission. Please remember that I can only work with what I’m given, and I have no spider-sense that will allow me to bypass the slush and zero in on the good stuff. It’s my hope that if the community legitimately helps the Crappypasta authors, this ratio of crap:creep may become a bit better in the future.

I’m (somewhat) back, and don’t worry, I am fine. I’ve finally passed the “sleeping all day” phase – turns out prescription painkillers make me incredibly tired, even more so than the antibiotics that I’d been on previously. The painkillers do make me feel a bit nauseated, to the point where long periods of time looking at the computer screen or TV, certain foods, car rides, etc can make me feel pretty rotten and send me running back to bed. So while I’m starting the process of getting back into reading submissions, it might be a couple more days until I’m able to do it for any long periods of time, so I have to warn you guys not to expect me to dive back into things at full speed.

I am going to need to get through a few more days of submissions before I begin posting again. I need to get a better idea of where we’re at with the quality:quantity ratio. Specifically, I need to figure out if posting 2 pastas a day is still easily viable, or if I need to drop down to one per day. As I’ve said before, I’ve received a higher amount of submissions than ever before, but most of them are – not to be rude – not particularly impressive. This means that it takes me longer to find postable submissions, which means that reducing the amount of published pastas to one per day might be easier/more realistic for me at this point in time. Once I get a decent idea of what I’m working with in regards to submissions, I can also come up with a time frame for the next submission open/close period.

Expect some posts on Crappypasta within the day, so at least you guys have that to look forward to. Sorry about the delay on publishing and reading submissions. I owe you all a lot of thanks for the outpouring of nice comments in this post; I was honestly expecting to get yelled at, so this has been a really pleasant surprise. Thanks also go out to my unnamed-by-request friend who stood in for me with approving comments and made sure that the submission form got closed on time. You are all very much appreciated.

I’m putting the original post under the read more, so as not to cause confusion. If you’re seeing this on the front page and have no idea what’s going on, click the read more icon or the post title and you’ll see the rest of this post.

ORIGINAL POST FROM 1/13:

Hi guys, derpbutt here. As I’ve mentioned once or twice in the comments, I’ve been on a run of antibiotics and had an upcoming surgery to fix my current health issue. The surgery is tomorrow, and I’m told that I’ll need a couple of days to recover. I’m to expect to be very sleepy and not much in the mood for doing anything productive during this time. Given how sleepy the antibiotics have already been making me, I’m taking this to mean that I’ll be pretty much a zombie for a few days.

That said, to make things a bit easier on me, no new pastas will be posted until I’m recovered. I’ve been playing catch-up with scheduling submissions anyhow due to the combination of antibiotics drawing me to spend most free time asleep and the high quantity/low quality ratio of recent submissions. This means that I was only getting things scheduled the night before they went up on the site anyhow, and I’ve been stressed out about how I was going to make this work when I was even more out of commission.

Solution: I will drift in and out to approve comments and make sure that nothing’s exploded, and I’m asking a trusted friend to monitor the health of the site for me – essentially babysitting to make sure we’re not hacked while I’m unconscious. And before you ask, no, he’s not interested or capable in doing anything on the submission side of things, so be happy that there’s even someone trustworthy willing to do this much for us, please.

I hope that you all understand, and I sincerely hope that the lack of stress helps me recover more quickly. Truth be told, I’ve never had to have surgery before so I’m pretty nervous as it is, and having you guys be nice about me needing a short break would definitely help to ease my mind.

To make up for this, I am extending the submission open period. You will now have until next Sunday, January 20th, to submit. Writers, take advantage of this small break to send me some really awesome pastas, please. I won’t be able to eat solid foods for a bit, so figurative pasta will have to do!

I cannot give a precise date for when I’ll be back in fighting shape, but it is my sincere hope that it won’t take too long. Take care!